Monday, August 19, 2013

Sunday Times stunning revelation about Archbishop of Canterbury

Following The Times' specious song-and-dance about the Archbishop of Canterbury having 'snubbed' the RSPCA by declining to become a patron, The Sunday Times (£) has made an utterly startling revelation: a dramatic disclosure; a striking manifestation of truth.

Justin Welby went pheasant shooting.

Once.

In or around 1985.

Oh, and apparently he followed this cruel and detestable blood-lust with a bit of clay pigeon shooting, after which bracing endeavour he became known among the world's oil-drilling tycoons as a bit of “reasonable shot”.

Right.

Oh, yes, and the reason the Times is telling us this is because they discern (or make the 'revelation', as they call it) that there is a causal link between a single pheasant-shooting excursion 30 years ago and his decision now to 'snub' the RSPCA.

Right.

Lambeth Palace told Nicholas Hellen and Jonathan Leake, the chosen prophets for this revelation: “The archbishop went on a live pheasant shoot on one occasion in the mid-1980s while working for Enterprise Oil. It held no interest for him and he never went again. This has no bearing on his recent decision not to patron [sic] the RSPCA, which is a decision he made regretfully due to time constraints.”

Whilst His Grace shares The Sunday Times' dismay that Lambeth Palace renders 'patron' a verb,
it is as nothing compared to his consternation and profound disheartenment that the Times and Sunday Times have sunk to such composting levels of journalism. Neither of these articles present any intelligent analysis at all: both are draped in a diaphanous sneer of anti-Anglicanism and barrel-scraping archbishop-bashing that one might think they had originated in the plagiarising pages of the Telegraph.

Incredibly, it appears that Mssrs Hellen and Leake even went to the trouble of contacting the establishment where Archbishop Justin used to shoot these poor pottery pigeons. What did they glean from its spokesman? That he was "a reasonable shot . . . [and] a nice bloke."

Archbishop Justin of Canterbury - a reasonable shot and a nice bloke.

What a revelation. He should have it engraved on his tomb.

Oh, sorry, almost forgot. These intrepid investigative journalists also managed to ferret out a distressed animal rights activist, one Andrew Tyler, director of Animal Aid, who said: “Welby should be honest about his past and make clear what he now thinks about the morality of shooting birds for sport."

You know what, Andrew? He's got rather more important things to do - like striving for the peace of Jerusalem and pledging solidarity with the Copts, against which the morality of shooting a pheasant in 1985 doesn't really hit the radar. And the Times and Sunday Times ought to have more important religion matters to write about. Like, perhaps, the systematic eradication of Christianity from its biblical heartlands.

And while we're scrutinising inept Times journalism, what's this about?

Faith leader? Why the all-encompassing and generic? What's wrong with saying 'Chief Rabbi' in the headline? You know, it's still good front-page stuff, and Times readers are perfectly capable of understanding a complex Jewish term like 'Rabbi'.

This is a rare and bold political intervention by the distinguished leader of Britain's Jewry, Lord Sacks, who is of the view that the Government is not doing enough to support mothers who stay at home to rear their children. A puny tax-break for married couples is a token gesture: we are in danger of losing - under a Conservative Prime Minister - all understanding of why the state should support marriage and mitigate the appalling costs - social and economic - of family breakdown.

This isn't being said by the leader of Britain's Scientologists, but by the Chief Rabbi, who speaks on behalf of about a quarter of a million Children of Abraham. Sure, that's not as many as Stephen Fry's Twitter followers, but Lord Sacks is concerned with the morality of political policy and questions of religious truth. This robust and frank intervention merits the headline identification of his office; not a bland attribution to an unspecific 'faith', disclosed only in a strap-line afterthought and complemented by a puny passport-size snapshot.

75 Comments:

Being an Anglican, maybe I am becoming too quick to see malicious criticism, but it seems that anything will do as mud to throw at prominent, mainline Christian denominational leaders nowadays. The whole build up of criticism around him declining the RSPCA and now this silly little matter is quite childish and silly really.

It could have been spun very diffferently, namely that the decline of the RSPCA demonstrated maturity of judgement, with him selecting carefully only around his Church's "core business", coupled with sincerity, good time management etc, and the shooting incident shows that he, having tried it once, clearly has no interest in murdering small birds. But instead what silly webs they try to weave !

I recommend Nick Davies's "Flat Earth News" http://goo.gl/MkTL3b - it's depressing, but gives an understanding of how newspapers used to work and how they work now. Most journalists want to produce better reporting than this, but aren't given the time and money to do their jobs properly. The most "successful" in their trade are those who can create stories with impact, and do so cheaply.

This is why publishing pieces like Peter Welby's essay on Egypt matters.

Lord Sacks also provided a reality check for Western multiculturalists.

"The real danger in a multicultural society is that every ethnic group and religious group becomes a pressure group, putting our people’s interest instead of the national interest.”

Perhaps he is finally acknowlwdging that Islam can never become part of a peaceful multicultural society because it will always strive to impose monoculturalism by destroying competing cultures, and in many cases intimidating and murdering their adherents (as in Egypt)

Islam is so utterly different from the modern secular West in so many fundamental aspects (status of the sexes, homophobia, equality before the law, dhimmitude, arranged marriages, freedom of expression, blasphemy, human rights, child marriage, freedom of belief, apostasy, rationalism etc) that no coherent compromise or stable coexistence can be possible.

The two worldviews or Islam and modernity are diametrically polarized and totally incompatible, and one of them must eventually eliminate the other. Meanwhile, any society that allows Islam within its borders will have big trouble.

So Welby has bagged a couple pheasants in his time? Jolly good show! Gone up in my estimation. The attempt at this 'smear' is only successful in respect to the appeal to the extreme leftie /urban/liberal/socialist/ animal rights brigade types, not of a serious chaps or even a journal like the times!

Wow! what a revelation. I can' wait for the follow up, "Sobbing with remorse, Prelate admits 'I ate beef for dinner' thirty years ago".Yep it's silly season again.I presume the journalists who penned this exposure are card carrying vegans who never go near Mc D's.

As for the the other Headline, what can one say? - You mean Lord sacks is JEWISH & a Rabbi?. So that's why they didn't make him Archbishop of Canterbury. Anti-Semitic I call it.

I was comparing Islam and Modernism. In the numbers game as seen by the two ideologies, Islam is way ahead.

Incidentally, I could never understand, while reading his book, why Dawkins seemed to dilsike the God of his perception so much. "... unjust, unforgiving control-freak, a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser" and so on.

Sounds perfect as a lean, mean survival machine. If survival is the ultimate determinant of value - and if it isn't, then what is? - then where's the problem?

Brilliant point, although I would say that as I've made it before now. If religion is a meme with survival value, and survival is ht eonly marker of evolutionary suiccess, and Islam proves strongest by sustained vigorous breeding and eliminating the opposition in the Darwinian struggle for life, and thereby replaces western civilisation, why would that be a problem in his deterministic world view?

Returning to the point of the blog, I posted a video of me skinning and butchering a deer on my YouTube channel, so there. I frrrt in the RSPCA's face.

That highly overrated BBC luvvy Bill Oddie was reported as lambasting Justin welby on Today this morning, demanding he give an explanation for refusing to bow the knee to the uniformed animal rights fanatics. Who the quack does he think he is?

Does anyone else remember the time Oddie lost his temper with a radio journalist who was interviewing him about climate change because she dared to put a sceptical question?

Funny old world. But not that old of course according to the genealogies. Oh dear I'd better stop there.

PS on sporting parsons, I remember reading an article in Trout and Salmon magazine by an Anglican minister answering the anti-angling arguments. He concluded by saying that our Lord was recordedin the Gospels as having performed several miracles concerning the catching (and therefore killing) and eating of fish, and that if anyone presumed to be more moral and upright that Him then their self righteousness and arrogance was beyond all bounds.

''We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."

And so what if the ABC once went pheasant shooting, there is nothing wrong with shooting birds that are bread for it. It's humane killing and man is a hunter, it would be cruel to deprive him of it. How in God's name can it be linked in any way with his decision not to be patron of the RSPCA? I would say it is a practical and sensible method to prioritise his workload in order to be able to devote quality time with those causes he wants to take on and really make a difference to. He's a practical, realistic type by the look of things. Haven't the Times got anything better to report on even though it's August and there is a dearth of news I didn't hold The Times to be a tittle tattle sort of paper.

On the other hand, if there is nothing, but "blind pitiless indifference" (as in, 'A River Ran Out of Eden') then why shouldn't we get on the programme and do blind, pitiless indifference for ourselves? Live in harmony with the way it is, rather than fight it. Better for short-term survival.

It might sink the ship a bit sooner, but if the ship wasn't really headed anywhere in the first place, then so what? The whole human voyage is as pointless as the individual human life.

After all, once you die your experiences die with you. You may live on for a bit in the memories of those who knew you, but once they're dead too, you'll be forgotten: and so will even the famous when the Planet itself is terminated. Posterity itself has non long-term future.

All this depends, of course, on the accuracy of that "if" in the first sentence. Once that's in question, the rest of this argument potentially goes down with it.

I asked why SHOULD anyone escape it, if unmoved by the Dawkins version of the categorical imperative? The sort of person who a) wouldn't have a clue, in the passage you cited, what Dawkins was actually talking about, or b) so the Universe sanctions sefishness. Suits me!

Yes, the secular culture is now more than fully installed, dominant and celebrated. Somehow, don't ask me how, serious Christians have to find a way of living with that fact, without being swamped by it. In the background you have the echoes of a Christian past, or perhaps Christian influenced, past, which the secularists just ignore, and sometimes they accept the nice, non-threatening bits like the musical or architectural heritage. But what they react against very strongly, becoming strangely "moralistic" in a secular creed sort of way, is any attempt for the former dominant faith to place itself prominently in the public square, nowadays. That attracts heavy fire. Somehow we have to find a new way of living, thriving, families as well, as Christians. Perhaps this involves going under the radar, as a minority faith in some way, because direct challenges in public will just get us blown away. I'm just conjecturing, as I don't know the answer, but we have to discover a way of doing more than just surviving, but succeeding, and thereby keeping the faith alive. Is a dramatic upward gear change in practical ecumenical activity, retaining differences of doctrine say, or governance, whilst pooling administratively some sort of option. Just brain storming really.

C S Lewis commented that when compulsory college chapel was abolished in Oxford, the numbers dropped dramatically. However, the quality of the service improved because those attending actually wanted to be there. A case of less is more. There are lots of ways forward, and I am sure they will become clearer.

There's a short essay on my Blog called 'The Gates of Death' that may be of interest to you. You'll need to backtrack a bit, but it's one of the more recent ones.

"Somehow we have to find a new way of living, thriving, families as well, as Christians. Perhaps this involves going under the radar, as a minority faith in some way, because direct challenges in public will just get us blown away."

Nooooo .... our history as Christians tells a different story.

The Libyan Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Qataani, raised the alarm amongst Muslims a few years ago on Al-Jazeera: African Christianity has a great inner strength. The contact of Muslims to Christianity has led millions of Muslims to be baptised.

According to the Times, 15% of immigrants to Europe have abandoned Islam and have become Christian. In the UK the number is now estimated at 200,000. In France, every year about 15,000 Muslims become Christians.

Christianity cannot go on the back foot! Muslims find the peace they want in their lives through Christ. Unfortunately, and here's the downer, our leaders are letting the faith down by their concessions to immorality.

^ The Libyan Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Qataani, raised the alarm amongst Muslims a few years ago on Al-Jazeera: "In Africa alone, every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity, 16,000 every day, six million a year." African Christianity has a great inner strength. The contact of Muslims to Christianity has led millions of Muslims to be baptised.

It was early this current century, maybe 2001. The Times came through the letter box in tabloid form. Absolutely gutted over that. Then they turned it into a yuppie paper. Well that was it. Went over to the Telegraph. A chap can only take so much you know !

It’s a strong meat, and the flavour is intensified if you let the blighters hang for a bit. Don’t worry about the shot you’ll find in them, it’s not lead but compacted carbon. Delicious, and makes a welcome change to veal.

Bon appetite chaps !

Oh yes, the reason for this post. Some things were just born to be shot at…

Thanks. I was aware that Dawkins had said that about altruism, he is clearly sensitive to the charge that materialism offers no fundamental reason why we should be disinterestedly kind to one another, and Darwinism seems to model the complete opposite, i.e. murderous competition with winner takes all. But I believe he was being inconsistent with his own stated beliefs.

He said on a TV show a few years back that we all 'just knew' that cruelty to animals was wrong, but as I asked in a critique of the programme which was posted on the Creation Science Movement blog (yes, I'm one of them), what basis did he have for this assertion other than sentiment? And what about the person doing the cruelty who clearly thought it was right?

People may have kinder or less kind thoughts, but in a godless universe in which the delusion of consciousness and of having a souls and free will is merely a random blip between the big bang and the heat death of the universe, what objective basis is there for such feelings other than sentiment? Please note, I am not falling into the silly trap of asserting that atheists cannot do good deeds or Christians bad ones, only asking why Dawkins finds it necessary to pretend that his nihilistic world view compels altruism, when it doesn't really.

I fail to see any consistent logic in Dawkins' deterministic and doomed universe for preferring the survival of scientific rationalism to its immolation by resurgent Jihadi Muhammadanism, or indeed post modern hedonism. A E Housman made more sense, for an atheist, in his suicide poetry.

'Shot? So quick, so clean and ending?That was good, boy, that was brave.Yours was not a fault for mending.best to take it to the grave.'

If atheism is known to be true then we should perhaps applaud Housman's lucidity and honesty and recommend suicide for all sorts of hard cases where the delusion of being a living soul has become painful.

You omitted the 6 million per year in Africa - more traditional culture and not beset with the confusions facing Christians in the Western, secular nations.

My point? Don't compromise the teachings of Christ and don't be afraid to speak up against the politicians dragging us down. In this way more Muslims may just convert. They will not if they see us silently standing by while sin is positively promoted - divorce, abortion and homosexuality.

Lord Sacks is doing a brave thing for speaking up in this way. He will be vilified and targetted in an unpleasnat way I@m sure. He is so darn right! The tories have messed up marriage (not, I hope, irreversibly)then they offer a derisory tip to married couples, about as much as Dave and Nick probably spend on their silk socks.And George Osbourne tells us that being a stay-at-home mother is a lifestyle choice. But so is going out to work a lifestyle choice. Why should you have to subsidize someone else's choice? If anyone says that being a homosexual is a "lifestyle choice" they get shot at by the Gaystapo. Don't talk to me about Dawkins, - he's such a bad scientist he has been known to approve the crap of a "gay gene".

David HussellHere's a link: http://eponymousflower.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/jesus-instead-of-jihad-every-year-six.html

If you've ever encountered an African Catholic priest covering a parish during the absence of its regular priest, you will understand my point.

They tend to be young, assertive and masculine. They preach clearly and uncompromisingly on defending Christian values. None of this: "Who am I to Judge?" from them or talk of going off-radar! They challenge and they inspire.

If Sheikh Ahmad is fretting over mass apostasy in Africa, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh has words of comfort for him:

❛One of the most powerful figures in the Anglican Church believes that Africa is under attack from Islam and that Muslims are ‘mass-producing’ children to take over communities on the continent.

Africa was ‘surrounded by Islamic domination’, he said, and he urged Christians to speak out now or lose the authority to speak. ‘I am telling you, Islam is spending in Uganda and in other places, it is money from the Arab World,’ he claimed, accusing Christians of abdicating their responsibilities.❜—The Australian

Johnny R, some believe Africa is the real battle ground between the Christian West and Islam. Think of that continent under Islamist control. I am more confident than you about the resilience of Christianity if it but abandons its liberalising/modernising heresies.

seanrobsville, that's an interesting article. I never realised Buddhists were so worldly.

I wonder how our Anglican friends regard this observation:

"Although the Church of England is in a state of meltdown, there is much in historic Anglican culture that is worth preserving. The basic tenet of Anglicanism is 'Latitudinarianism' - which means you can believe anything you like as long as you don't get too fanatical. Since it's possible to be a Church of England Druid, maybe you can also be a Church of England Buddhist."

What an asinine comment. No religion is superior to the mindset of giving equal and fair treatment, rights and opportunities to all. Islam makes Christianity look positively moral, and that's saying something.

What an asinine comment. No religion is superior to the mindset of giving equal and fair treatment, rights and opportunities to all. Islam makes Christianity look positively moral, and that's saying something.

Joanne, your post suggests that homosexuals are being regularly murdered by the religious right. That's quite a potent statement which appears to suggest that bible believing Christians are routinely homicidal.Are you able to be any more specific?

I am aware of the two homo teenagers publicly hanged by the Iranian theocracy a few years back, poor souls, and the call for the death penalty by the detested Fred Phelps, but apart from that?

In Africa things are more black and white, in all the denominations, mine included, I think. Oppositions and even persecution may be helping to sharpen the faith.

Your "Latitudinarianism". Anglicanism globally is growing strongly and is clear, courageous and orthodox in its teachings. Yes in England the C of E is in trouble, following the social liberalism, permissiveness of our western society generally. Maybe we have had it easy for too long?

Anglicanism in its historic forms has much to commend it, and this is tacitly acknowledged by Rome, for instance, offering the Ordinariate, a form of Anglican liturgical practice and traditions within Catholicism. Historically the C of E was a "Broad Orthodoxy", so one could be Anglo-Catholic in worship and theology, Liberal and tolerant which is another word for worldly, or Evangelical emphasizing Scripture. This was the deal worked out to prevent further civil war and unrest. Tolerance within defined limits was better than war and strife. Some like me were guided by Hooker who maintained a dynamic balance between Scripture, Tradition and Reason, with the first uppermost, Classic Anglicanism. So your quotation is a distortion of a subtle position which was far from "anything goes". It had its separate but overlapping theological disciplines, I would say. Now there was always a tension between A/Catholics, Liberals and Evangelicals which more or less worked out OK, but the last 60 years what has gone wrong is that the Liberals are strongly ascendant and, like so called liberalism in society, intolerant of other positions, are slowly destroying the richness and rigour brought by the two other wings of the Church. If the liberalism goes much further, say so called "Gay Blessings" splits may develop, I don't know. But certainly there is hardcore of people like myself who are sincere, committed followers of The Way, respectful of Scripture and Tradition, and orthodoxy generally. Ee will endure. I feel closer to Anglicans in The Global South than many of my fellow , luke warm C of E types. Tolerance is part of the English genius, a strength historically, but since the rise of Relativism, this has been our weakness, in the C of E, and the country generally I would say. I hope that helps, in not too many words.

As His Grace reminded us a few posts ago 43 churches have been burnt to the ground in Egypt, the Bible Society Cairo headquarters, three Christian Schools and two christian bookshops have been destroyed as well.

The Church of England has completely lost it's moral way, having taken up most if not all of the views of the world and abandoned, lost or forgotten the Holy Scriptures, it's touchstone along the way. Is it surprising it is now an object of contempt and a easy target to the Godless with it's view that, "You can do as you like and we will love you" and "You can live as you like and you will go to heaven" ? I think not. The Godless might not be so loveable when they do what the Muslims are doing in Egypt these days.

As an example of how totally mad the Church of England has become, our "dear" Bishop of Salisbury, him of the pro homosexuality fame, has joined the Mother's Union as an active member ! together with other actively homosexual activist clergy in the Salisbury Diocese and he is in the process of bullying the (entirely female) leadership of the Mothers Union to accept and endorse homosexual so called "marriage". Is this what the man is in post to do ?

Thus far the dear women of the Salisbury Diocese Mothers Union, who have very strong links with the Susan and are aware of the murder of Christians by Muslims over this issue in the Anglican Communion, have stood out against the Bishop of Salisbury but I wonder for how long they can do this ?

As for the Church in Britain generally - Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. James 4:9-10.

This whole process is like watching something out of the Old Testament Prophets. The enemy without the gates, the Devil in the form of Islam, will be upon us just like it is on the Coptic Church and the Devil within will continue to pull everything down into darkness as we watch with immorality, humanism, secularism, progressivism and multiculturalism.

Things are going to get a whole lot more uncomfortable for the Church of England so don't be concerned by these momentary light afflictions the real pain is coming.

Almost a 150 years ago in speaking on the challenges of being a Christian man, C.H.Spurgeon said, ‘there has got abroad a notion, some how, that if you become a Christian you must sink your manliness and turn milksop’. (milksop is bread soaked in milk or someone who is a weak and easily frightened person, otherwise called a sensitive new age guy by today’s standard) One of the problems among Christian men is a lack of understanding of what it means to be ‘more like Jesus’ as men. We know that we are to grow to be more like Jesus (Col.1:28), and to lead like Jesus (Eph.5:25) in our relationships. The problem is that most Christian men see Jesus more in feminine categories rather than masculine ones, or as I read in a book this week (No More Christian Nice Guy), the vast majority of Christian men see Jesus as a bearded woman.

If I said to you ‘picture the ultimate man’, what image comes to mind? For most Christian men, Jesus is not the image that comes to mind. In his book The Heart Of A Tender Warrior, Stu Weber writes, ‘Why is it when someone says, “picture the archetypal male,” the image that comes to mind is not one of Jesus? I have to confess that, for years, the picture in my mind would not have been Jesus. Even the single most famous portrait of Jesus makes Him look more like a pouting model for shampoo than a man’. It’s tragic but true. Our image of Jesus is one of a nice guy, who was always gentle, meek, mild, and who never offended anyone.

The Bishop of Salisbury said, upon his joining as an active member of the Mother's Union, said, "It is all about nurturing". Not very manly perhaps but then his intentions were political not spiritual I would guess, I can't see him baking cakes for the bring and buy.

Yet, when you turn to the gospels you discover a man who we’re told was born to bring division, and who would be the cause of the destruction and salvation of many people (Luke 2:34; 12:51; Matt.10:34). You discover a man who spoke the truth and spoke up publicly against hypocrisy calling the religious leaders in his day snakes fit for hell, and decomposing corpses that stunk and polluted others (Matt.3:7; 23:27, 33). You discover a man who thought his disciples were slow and let them know about it (Matt.17:17). You discover a man who threatened judgment to those who were spiritual unfruitfulness (Luke 13:6-9). You discover a man who got physical when he saw God’s name dishonored (Mark.11:15-17). The Bible’s picture of Jesus is one of a man who openly confronted lies and deception, who spoke the truth boldly, who spoke up against hypocrisy, who spoke judgment, who wasn’t afraid to embarrass those who deserved it, who jealously acted to guard God’s honor, and who wasn’t trying to please everyone. Jesus was no milksop, he wasn’t a sensitive, "nurturing" new age guy, and he wasn’t a bearded woman. In fact, in the last book of the Bible, Jesus is portrayed as a divine warrior who initiates God’s final salvation and judgment (Rev.19:11-21)

Coercion, intimidation, thuggery and outright terrorism are intrinsic and essential features of Islam.

Islam is so intellectually moribund and morally repulsive that it cannot compete for followers in a free marketplace of ideas, but must eliminate its competitors by whatever means may be necessary, including destruction of their sacred sites (remember Bamiyan) as well as rape, torture, mutilation, acid attacks and murder of their adherents.

Maybe all the kuffars should join together in a counter-jihadist coalition.

This article in the times is somewhat trivial compared to the real problems faced by Christians around the world. Will this article harm the ABC or the Christian community? Not at all. Much of that harm has been done already and much (possibily most) of it has been self-inflicted by the church leadership abandoning its principles and teachings. It reminds me of adults, who in ordsr to appear cool to the younger generation, deliberatrly behave immaturely and indescretely. They look like fools and get treated as fools.

So as Mrs King eloquently points out, don't be too concerned about irrelevat media stories like this. The real challengees are yet to come

Well we need Men of God, mighty men of Valour to stand against the Devil and all his whiles. Unless you have the right picture of Jesus, men, your masculinity and your understanding of what it means to be a Christian man will be lacking. Down with the whimpy feminised spirit, I say ! Why do you need a Joan of Arc or a Bodicea to tell you what to do, why aren't you taking your instructions from the LORD ? Maybe you are aren't listening enough or maybe you have become fat and lazy in the business of spiritual warfare. Be emboldened and be strong.

Unfortunately the media, typically, spotlight the ultra liberal Bishops like the ones you mention and ignore the courageous, orthodox ones like Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who coming from an Islamic background in Pakistan understands that religion exceedingly well and is a very wise Anglican Bishop. Bishop Tom Wright is also very sound. However I have little to no faith in many of the C of E hierarchy. But the Global South, GAFCON group are excellent. But the orthodox, plain speaking ones are shunned by the establishment of course, as you might expect.

So I see myself as very Anglican, in the global and historic sense, but not very C of E. The C of E will probably shrink to a committed minority over the next few decades. Evangelical groups like Reform, full of young people and families, will flourish. This reflects what is happening across a broad spectrum of western Christianity of course.

I agree with your comments. I thought Bishop Nazir-Ali was retired, largely due to media outrage when he said there are parts of our British cities which are non-muslim no go areas ?

I heard him speak that the Conservative conference last year. He said the Church in the west hasn't woken up to the dangers facing her. I think we are beginning to wake up but the dangers are immense. he also said the congregants no longer read or know their Holy Bibles, this makes them very easy to lead into error by dishonest clergy.

To add to the confusion over who is converting to what, this Guardian article claims that ‘one in nine black Christian men are converting to Islam.’ One sentence rings all too true: ‘The passivity that Christianity promotes is perceived as alien and disconnected to black youths growing up in often violent and challenging urban environments in Britain today.’

Peter D and Johnny R, it is absolutely true that the black africans, particularly from Nigeria, a country which has had a HUGE revival in the last 20 years, are coming back to Europe in search of gold and education and wives and are bringing with them a love of Holy Scripture, a love of Prayer and a love of Patriarchal Family life long since "lost" in the Western Church let alone disappeared from the Western Godless Society. I thank God for them.

And on point ... I read yesterday that David Cameron is on the Isle of Jura where his father in law Viscount Astor owns 20,000 acres of dear stalking. Apparently David has spent the last 20 years regularly deer stalking on Jura, presumably since he and Samantha married. David is a keen dear stalker who can kill two deer in quick succession.

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

British Conservatism's greatest:

The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.Sir Robert Peel, Bt.(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)